"Three lanes open for Memorial Day weekend," said the Wonder, and of course you and I both know that she was spot on because I already said that.
After several long minutes that seemed like half the morning, we were next up to be did-you-find-everything-you-needed? I felt the relief that one can only feel when the wait finally ends. I mean I had long since bored myself silly re-visiting old text messages, voice messages, and articles with subject lines like 17 Things Celebrities Do That You Don't.
The teller began ringing up the locally grown and gluten-free and was moving at a satisfactory pace. In, my mind, I was already carting the goods to the car, bunging them into the hatch, and getting on with Friday evening, which as you well know is pizza night at Chatsford Hall. And not just any pizza. It was a Margherita pizza with cauliflower crust.
At some point, I dimly became aware that someone nearby was calling my name. I looked round to search for the name-caller and imagine my surprise when it turned out to be Ms. Wonder and she was standing right beside me. She gave me a peculiar look. Difficult to describe it. And then she began gesturing toward the corner of the shop where they keep the good stuff.
"Sprouted bread!" she said with some urgency in her tone.
Now, this is one of those remarks that leave me without a solid comeback. You may have a ready response for it but not me. It got right over my head. It was my turn to give her a look.
"Squirrely," she said.
If I was flummoxed before, I was lying in a heap on the floor now. How did she learn of my childhood nickname and why did she take this particular moment to start using it?
"Get sprouted bread from the cooler," she said.
We Genomes have minds like steel traps, of course, and I immediately realized that:
1) the teller was ringing up the last half-dozen items...and
2) Ms Wonder was adamant that we would be leaving with a loaf of sprouted bread
We Genomes are men of action, of course, and it was with me the work of an instant to turn, rocket through the vegetable bins, and stand in front of the bread coolers. With thoughts of that precious Wonder enduring the glares of shoppers waiting in line behind her after she'd answered in the affirmative when asked if she'd found everything, I wasted no time making my decision.
I grabbed the first loaf I saw. It was the Big 16. But as I turned to face Ms. Wonder and the teller, who were now 4 vegetable bins and 6 checkout lanes away from me, I saw the pleading look in Wonder's eyes and then felt the universal male urge to be the knight that saves his lady from the dragon. She needed me to live up to my reputation--that of moving in mysterious ways my wonders to perform.
I saw something else when I made that turn at the bread cooler. I saw another loaf of sprouted bread with a label that read, Squirrely. I immediately knew two things, because didn't I say that we Genomes are pretty damned smart?
I knew to put the Big 16 back and grab the Squirrely. It will seem incredible to you but in that instant, I had bandwidth enough to be grateful that Wonder didn't know about my childhood nickname after all. And I'll tell you why I was able to make room for gratitude even though the pressure had hotted up. The reason is that I'd found the solution.
When I'd looked into those green eyes in those last few moments, I felt that the only thing I had to live for, in that present moment, was making her happy. I would be her knight.
"Hurry!" the Wonder called.
I took one longish step toward the cashier and cocked the arm, if that's the word I want, seeming to fall effortlessly back into high-school football form. That's right. I rocketed that loaf of sprouted bread high above the heads of shoppers and up into the stratosphere of the Sprouts market.
Up and up, as dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly, that loaf of bread arched across the dome of the market and every eye in the store followed it. Made me think of the way we watched the space station cross the sky one moonless night last winter.
Having almost reached escape velocity, but failing by a percentage point, the seeded missile paused for a heartbeat near the air conditioning ducts and then began its descent, slowly at first but with increasing velocity. If I didn't know better, I would swear to you that it became incandescent as it reentered the earth's atmosphere.
Small children clutched their mother's Athleta-wear. Women screamed and abandoned their shopping carts. Faint-hearted men clutched the walnut handles of their 2nd amendment rights.
Not to worry; Ms. Wonder was at the receiving end and she's one woman who's forever cool in a crisis. She one-handed that loaf and slid it across the scanner without missing a tic.
It was a perfect ending and the applause from the other shoppers and employees made it a perfect day. You've heard it before and it remains forever true, my friends, life comes hard and fast and it pays to be prepared. Fierce qigong!